Lo Que Cargamos: Part III - Barely Holding Together

Posted on Fri Jan 2nd, 2026 @ 11:45am by 1st Lieutenant Ángel Martinez

1,546 words; about a 8 minute read

Mission: Character Backstories
Location: USS Pathfinder, Various
Timeline: 2388/2374

Warning: This post contains violence and death that some may find distressing, reader discretion is advised

2374: Federation Forward Encampment, Chin’toka System Outpost

The air in the bunker felt thin. Not from lack of oxygen, but something heavier. Something tighter. Like the walls were pressing in around the edges of their chest, leaving just enough space to keep breathing, but not enough to feel it.

The report had come hours ago. Martinez hadn’t moved much since reading it, since it was handed over by a Chaplain who looked at them with eyes filled with sympathy. Now they sat at the long mess table, elbows planted on their knees, back hunched forward and eyes fixed on the floor like it might crack open and offer an answer…or an escape. The PADD still rested beside them, face-down, as if hiding the words would make them vanish.

Diego Martinez. Private. Federation Ground Forces. KIA. Chin’toka. Recon Advance. No med evac. No survivors.

That was the line that had broken something. Not the official phrases. Not the cold formatting. But that. No survivors. Like it had been a weather report. Like it wasn’t their brother. Like it was a lost helmet and not the loss of a squad of 18-year-olds pulled too quickly into a too bloody war.

The silence inside was unnatural. Not the quiet of calm, but the kind that came after something exploded. Debris scattered where thoughts should be. They kept thinking about the message delay. Mars was far. Messages routed through secured comms. War-time triage on transmissions, subspace relays. That meant their parents didn’t know yet. Neither did the girls. Not yet. They would still be lighting the house candles tonight. Still steeping cinnamon bark in café de olla. Still expecting one more letter. A scribbled line from Diego, sent late. Too short. Full of love.

They would still be waiting.

Martinez pressed their hands together hard enough that the bones ached. They couldn’t cry. Not yet. Not here. If they cried now, they weren’t sure they’d stop. They weren’t sure if they’d ever stop.

Their mind kept looping back, to conversations. Had it been earlier? Today? Yesterday? They didn’t know anymore. They just heard their own voice.

Fifteen when I enlisted. He watched everything I did. I told him not to join. I begged him.

He had said, You don’t get to make that call. Martinez had smiled when he said it. That crooked, stubborn look of his. All full of pride and fire and family. Now there was just the echo of it. Sharp as regret. Loud as guilt. Heavy as a body.

Diego was younger than any of them. Green as fresh moss. And they’d sent him out with a squad of other kids. Other boys, other girls, other nonbinary or undecided, with unscarred faces and borrowed rifles and boots too big. Sent them out to die. Called it calculated. A bloody tactic. Bait.

They wanted to scream. To break the screen, rip the word off the PADD and burn it all down to ash. But they just sat there, hollowed out. The rage coiled like wire beneath the skin, tight enough to cut. They thought of their sisters. Marisol in Logistics, the eldest. Sofia still in school. Marisol would find out first. She would carry it like Martinez was carrying it now. Sofia would break. Probably in her room. Probably alone.

They thought of their father, who would close every door in the house and go quiet for a week. And their mother, who would keep making dinner on special occasions for her four children long after it stopped making sense.

One child lost. And another one in the depths of it all, balancing on the edge between alive and dead. One bad command decision or bad luck away from becoming another war-time statistic.

Someone had put up a tree. A ration packet star and some threadbare uniform stitched to the wall. The grease pencil note still visible on the rota: 25 DEC. It made Martinez want to vomit. This wasn’t Christmas, celebrated in the way that Día de los Muertos or First Contact Day was done…with warmth and family and just a little bit of humour and superstition.

No…this wasn’t even grief anymore. This was something worse. Something without a name. A kind of mourning that didn’t know where to go.

They didn’t notice who was in the room. Didn’t care. Just stared at the table until the lines blurred and the world narrowed into the shape of a memory they didn’t want. Then something slid in front of them. A small silver tin. They blinked. Focused. It took a moment to register. Mint tea. Real leaf. They stared at it, vision raw, throat too tight to swallow. They reached, not to touch it, but close.

A breath. A thread. They didn’t look to see who had placed it. They already knew it was Jace. And they couldn’t speak. Not yet. Not without shattering. Their fingers curled toward the tin. Rested there. They thought of Diego’s hands, always restless. Always moving. They closed their eyes. And for just a moment, in that pressure-cooked silence, they weren’t a soldier.

They were just someone who had lost their little brother.

2388: USS Pathfinder, Martinez’s Quarters, 18:12 hours

The corridor light faded as the door sealed shut behind them. Martinez exhaled, slow and quiet, as if anything louder might wake a ghost. The room was tidy…some would call it spare. Every item placed where it belonged. Their duty boots cleaned and stowed; jacket squared over the back of the chair. There was order to it, the routine. It bandaged the edges with the cracks. It reminded them of what they were doing, what they were fighting for. It gave them a sense of control.

But some days, like this one, that control cracked around the edges. They crossed to the desk and picked up the small holoframe. It flickered gently to life in their hand.

There they were. Diego was in the centre, shoulder leaned in against them, the same half-defiant grin he’d always worn when he thought he was being clever. The kind that used to earn a good-natured shove and a warning not to push his luck. The sisters flanked either side, both laughing. Their parents behind them, arms loosely around the group. All that red Martian earth behind them, golden light caught in the frame like warmth could be stored. The view, like Diego, was gone now.

It had been snapped on Diego’s sixteenth birthday. Martinez didn’t remember what the cake had looked like, just that Diego had insisted on carrying it outside to eat under the stars. They stared at that grin now, at the brightness in his eyes, and felt something twist behind the ribs. There’d been no body to bury. No relic to return. Just a sealed report. A condolence letter. A brief note from the brass about bravery and sacrifice and the unfortunate realities of war.

As if that explained anything. As if it mattered now, years later, that he’d followed orders. That Martinez had begged him not to go and still couldn’t stop him. Sometimes, in quiet moments like this, they wondered if he had been scared. If, at the end, he had known they hadn’t abandoned him. That they would have fought their way to him if they could have. If there had been any way to do it, to grab their gear, go out across the battlefield and find them...and pull them out of there.

Morven would have followed them. They knew it. And maybe that was why they had never asked, hadn’t mentioned at the time. Because there had been a moment, a brief flash when Diego was in front of them in his uniform, the rookie meeting the eyes of those who had been there since before the start of the war...where all Martinez had wanted was to pull Diego into their arms and not let him go.

They could have gone out. They could have defied orders, defied everything and gone out there. But they didn't. Because the cost was too high. Because if they had gathered their gear and stood, heading to that door? They knew that the blue-eyed man would give a nod, pick up his gear and walk into the dark with them.

Martinez sank slowly into the chair, the photo still held gently between their hands. They didn’t cry. They rarely did anymore. But the ache was there…Familiar. Bone-deep. They set the holoframe down. Let the image fade. The room stayed still.

Martinez rubbed a thumb along the edge of the table for a moment as their eyes focused, then stood. Reached for the kettle without any hesitation. It would be mint tea tonight, not because they liked the taste…it was too clean, too much like toothpaste. But because it helped them. Not always. But sometimes. And tonight...it would have to be enough.

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